March 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (February 29, 1776).

“TO BE SOLD CHEAP FOR CASH … A VARIETY of ENGLISH GOODS.”

After more than seventy years, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter ended its run with one last advertisement and a colophon that stated, “Printed by J. HOWE, at the Printing-Office in Newbury-Street.”  John Campbell, the publisher, and Bartholomew Green, the printer, distributed the first issue of the Boston News-Letter, as the newspaper was initially named, on April 24, 1704.  It became the first weekly newspaper published in the colonies, preceded only by a single issue of Publick Occurrences, a newspaper quickly shut down by authorities in 1690.

The first issue of the Boston News-Letter concluded with an “Advertisement” soliciting advertisements: “THis News Letter is to be continued Weekly; and all Persons who have any Houses, Lands, Tenements, Farmers, Ships Vessels, Goods, Wares or Merchandizes, &c. to be Sold or Lett; or Servants Run away; or Goods Stoll or Lost, may have the same Inserted at a Reasonable Rate; from Twelve Pence to Five Shillings.”  Over the next seven decades, the Boston News-Letter carried countless advertisements, many of them promoting goods and services to readers experiencing a transatlantic consumer revolution.  The notices concerning “Servants Run away” included enslaved men and women who liberated themselves by fleeing from their enslavers.  Many other advertisements about enslaved people for sale also appeared in the pages of the Boston News-Letter alongside those promoting goods and services or placed for the various other reasons outlined in that first “Advertisement.”

Ownership of the newspaper changed several times.  The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter briefly suspended publication after the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  When it resumed, it was the only newspaper that continued in Boston.  All the others either closed or relocated to other towns.  New issues sometimes came out sporadically (or “PUBLISHED OCCASSIONALLY,” according to the masthead of the October 13, 1775, edition), often as half sheets with two pages of content instead of the usual full sheets with four pages.  Sometime in late September or early October, John Howe became the final printer of the newspaper.  In his History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, Clarence S. Brigham indicates that the last known issue was the February 22, 1776, edition, yet a quotation from the February 29 issue appeared in the Boston-Gazette on March 4.[1]  Since publication of Brigham’s History and Bibliography in 1947, a copy of the February 29 issue has been located, digitized, and made accessible via Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers.  That last known issue consisted of only two pages.  Most of the content consisted of news from London with some local updates from Boston.  Half a dozen advertisements also appeared, including a final notice from Richard Jennys for a “VARIETY of ENGLISH GOODS.”

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[1] Clarence S Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 328.

March 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Ledger (March 2, 1776).

“KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS … are selling … By NICHOLAS BROOKS.”

His advertisements in Philadelphia’s newspapers made it clear that Nicholas Brooks diversified his participation in the marketplace in the 1770s.  He often promoted selection of general merchandise, what he called a “curious Collection of various GOODS” in one advertisement, yet on other occasions he specialized in prints and maps.  Sometimes he made special note of those items in his advertisements, such as a nota bene that called attention to a “very large quantity of elegant pictures, maps, copper plater writings, and music,” while other times devoting advertisements exclusively to a “LARGE and curious collection of the most modern PRINTS and PICTURES.”  After the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Brooks partnered with Bernard Romans, a cartographer and engraver, to publish a “MAP, FROM BOSTON TO WORCESTER, PROVIDENCE AND SALEM” that showed the “SEAT of the present unhappy CIVIL WAR in NORTH-AMERICA” and print that provided “An Exact VIEW of the late BATTLE at CHARLESTOWN,” now known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.”  On the heels of those successful ventures, Brooks also advertised a “NEAT Mezzotinto print of the of the Hon. JOHN HANCOCK, Esquire, President of the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.”

Yet maps and prints were not Brooks’s only significant side hustle.  He also peddled patent medicines, placing an extensive advertisement for “MAREDANT’s DROPS,” complete with testimonials in March 1772.” He continued hawking patent medicines during the Revolutionary War.  For instance, he placed two advertisements in the March 2, 1774, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger.  The one for “Dr. RYAN’s INCOMPARABLE WORM-DESTROYONG SUGAR PLUMBS” rivaled his earlier advertisement for Maredant’s Drops in length.  Brooks billed this remedy as “Necessary to be kept in all FAMILIES.”  He described the efficacy of the medicine, noted its popularity in Great Britain and Ireland, and provided directions so prospective customers could see how easily they could administer the sugar plumbs once they purchased them.  In another notice, a much shorter one, Brooks advertised “KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS, so well known all over Europe, and in this and the neighbouring colonies, for their superior efficacy and peculiar mildness, in perfectly eradicating every degree of a certain disease.”  He did not need to say much more because this popular cure for venereal disease was advertised widely in the public prints.  Brooks did not exaggerate when he proclaimed that Keyser’s Pills were “so well known” on both sides of the Atlantic.  He also mentioned that he stocked Maredant’s Drops as well.  He offered discounts to retailers “who sell again.”  Side ventures into patent medicines accounted for an alternative revenue stream for Brooks, supplementing his sales of general merchandise and prints.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 2, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 2, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 2, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 2, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (March 2, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (March 2, 1776).

March 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Connecticut Gazette (March 1, 1776).

“Such has been the Demand for this Pamphlet, that eight Editions of it have been printed.”

Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette in New London, updated his advertisement for a local edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that he jointly published with Judah P. Spooner, his brother-in-law and former apprentice who ran a printing office in Norwich.  A week earlier, Green announced the imminent publication of the pamphlet in short advertisement: “To-morrow will be published, and sold by the Printer hereof, and by J.P. Spooner in Norwich; COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.”  Green hoped to incite a sense of anticipation among prospective customers.

Once he had copies available for sale at his printing office in New London, Green ran a more extensive advertisement, one that resembled advertisements in other newspapers placed by publishers and booksellers who sold editions published in Philadelphia, New York, and Providence.  In addition to the title of the pamphlet, the advertisement listed the “following interesting SUBJECTS” that Paine covered, replicating section headings that included “Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession” and “Thoughts on the present State of AMERICAN Affairs.”  Since Paine remained anonymous at that time, the advertisement stated that the pamphlet was “WRITTEN BY AN ENGLISHMAN.”  Green also included the epigraph, two lines of “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson, that appeared on the title page of the first edition and in advertisements for that and other editions.

In general, Green did not generate new copy for his advertisement for this edition of Common Sense, but he did add an original note at the end: “Such has been the Demand for this Pamphlet, that eight Editions of it have been printed in different Colonies, in the Course of a few Weeks only.”  For those who had not heard about the incendiary pamphlet and the bold ideas that Paine presented, Green hoped that its popularity in other places would convince them not to miss reading it for themselves by purchasing a local edition.  His tabulation of “eight Editions” suggested that he closely examined the advertisements in newspapers printed in other cities and towns delivered to his printing office as part of a network for sharing information and reprinting content from newspaper to newspaper to newspaper.  Green did not peruse just the news accounts and editorials.  He apparently took note of the competing editions published in Philadelphia and local editions advertised in other places.  Bringing attention to such demand, he reasoned, would spur sales of a local edition of Common Sense in New London.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 1, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 1, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 1, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 1, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 1, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 1, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 1, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Gazette (March 1, 1776).

February 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Gazette (February 28, 1776).

“Lancaster … JUST PUBLISHED … by FRANCIS BAILEY … COMMON SENSE.”

Readers encountered advertisements for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense on the first and final pages of the February 28, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  Two of those advertisements looked familiar to anyone who had been perusing the public prints in recent weeks.  One of them promoted the “NEW EDITION OF COMMON SENSE: With Additions and Improvements in the Body of the Work.”  Paine penned that material as well as “an APPENDIX, and an ADDRESS to the People called QUAKERS” for an edition that he worked with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford to publish.  The Bradfords and other members of the book trades in Philadelphia stocked and sold Paine’s approved edition.  Meanwhile, Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, continued hawking “Large Additions to COMMON SENSE,” a collection of essays drawn from newspapers, none of them by Paine, to accompany his unauthorized second edition of Common Sense.  The compositor conveniently placed the advertisements one after the other on the final page, seemingly not taking a side in the dispute.

Another advertisement for Common Sense appeared on the first page of that issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  It announced the publication of a local edition published by Francis Bailey in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  It was the first time that an advertisement for Bailey’s edition appeared in any newspaper.  Bearing the dateline, “Lancaster, February 24, 1776,” it informed readers that Bailey sold “COMMON SENSE; Addressed to the INHABITANTS of AMERICA.  With the Additions, APPENDIX, and Address to the People called QUAKERS” at his “Printing and Post-Offices, in King-street.”  Although other publishers of Common Sense provided a preview by listing the pamphlet’s section headings the first time they ran advertisements, Bailey did not do so.  Perhaps he did not consider it necessary considering that the Pennsylvania Gazette and other newspapers printed in Philadelphia that already carried advertisements for the various editions by Bell and the Bradfords circulated in Lancaster and served that town as local and regional newspapers.  Lancaster would not have its own newspaper until John Dunlap temporarily relocated his Pennsylvania Packet during the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777.  Bailey’s advertisement and his edition of Common Sense were for residents of Lancaster and nearby towns, not readers in Philadelphia who had ready access to other editions, but since they shared local-regional newspapers that already carried many advertisements that included the contents of the pamphlet Bailey did not need to incorporate that information into his own advertisement.  He saved money on advertising by publishing a streamlined notice.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 29, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (February 29, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (February 29, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 29, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 29, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 29, 1776).

Slavery Advertisements Published February 28, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 28, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (February 28, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 28, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 28, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 28, 1776).